"Health care in Israel is universal and participation in a medical insurance plan is compulsory. All Israeli citizens are entitled to basic health care as a fundamental right. The Israeli healthcare system is based on the National Health Insurance Law of 1995, which mandates all citizens resident in the country to join one of four official health insurance organizations which are run as not-for-profit organizations, and are prohibited by law from denying any Israeli citizen membership. "

Just so you are aware, Chairman Lara, author of SB 562, is running for insurance commissioner here in California. I thought he pushed his bill just for some nice headlines, but now I know it wasn't just for the headlines, but for buzz for his campaign. His bill was a showboat bill in every way, never a serious bill. That's why, as Appropriations Committee Chair, he didn't do his job developing financing options and language for the bill he authored. This was a campaign exercise, nothing more. …

Do you think this might be why Lara didn’t include any financing at all in SB 562? Maybe he didn’t want to run for statewide office on levying a 15% payroll tax, as his Committee analysis discussed? He also took $91,000 from the healthcare lobbies and I believe his coauthor, Atkins, took $120,000 this last cycle. Weird, right?
Paul Ryan didn’t send Mitch McConnell a bill absent financing, but Lara sure sent one to the Assembly. That’s the crappiest legislative strategy I’ve ever heard of, but a great political one if you are looking for campaign foot soldiers and want campaign coffers full.

I just say all this because you seem really hung up on the fact that in May-June, I felt differently about the SB 562 than I did in February-April. Of course, I didn’t know Lara was running for insurance commissioner initially, and certainly didn’t know the Senate Appropriations Chair, the guy responsible for finance language, had no intention of writing any until after it left Lara’s committee at the end of May. Even then, I hoped he’d adopt a formal report to guide his colleagues. Call me naive.

I know this will come as a shock, but I still support Lara’s bill in principle, but I just don’t think he was ever serious about it. I’m angry at him and Nurses United’s president because I think it was a sham effort. As commissioner, he’ll support the union in negotiations and the union will support him in donations while people like me, who protested for healthcare awareness back in May, get used.

Brown is just too old but he’s been a very solid governor. His position on the single payer bill was a pragmatic one given he just raised taxes for infrastructure. He’s defended the new gas tax quite strongly and I can understand why a healthcare bill that has no financing mechanisms, not even committee proposals, wouldn’t be what he goes to the mat for. He really wants to see infrastructure go forward and is willing to defend it if a repeal goes to the ballot. He’s called the anti-taxers out p…

Last, I want to apologize for this:

“I’m beginning to get the feeling that you resent anyone who knows a bit more about healthcare policy than you.”

Does it change that or do you just think so? The reason I ask is because I see a ton of talk, but no real policy right now. I worry it’s going to lead to a lot of acrimony, anger, and screams of “selloutism” when people realize a slogan isn’t policy. To put it into perspective, Conyers bill HR 676 envisions a “modest” payroll tax for employers and employees, an amount undefined (§ 211). In legislative lingo, this is what is called a “placeholder,” typically a controversial or challenging par…

Did any party or corporate sponsored MSM commentator argue that tax increases would be necessary to fund the $696 billion defense bill recently passed by both parties?
Do proponents of endless US overseas wars ever associate citizen taxation rates with funding such mammoth expenditures?

Whenever spending on citizen social/medical/education etc. support systems is proposed you can be sure all and sundry commentators/ opponents wheel out the ‘can we afford it’ and ‘necessitate tax increases’ arguments to convince the ill informed public that such spending is ‘un-affordable’.

See [Federal] Taxpayers do not fund anything
By acceding to the common fallacy that ‘federal taxes fund federal spending’ you argue on their chosen (neoliberal) grounds - and serve to further reinforce a deliberately promoted popular misconception of national macroeconomic management fundamentals.

From decisondata.org
Conclusion: Universal Health Care would save the people of the United States about $600 billion for the same level of care they’re receiving. We found it would require an additional $562 billion in taxation to cover the government spending, after savings and increases to demand.

Read the Krugman article. Dear Paul the consummate and quintessential cautious incrementalist. C’mon Paul the Dutch system isn’t all that successful. There aren’t any private for profit systems for a monopoly like health care. The ACA is so convoluted and confusing that repair is virtually impossible. Only economist degrees can decipher it.

I am getting daily emails from Bernie and co to help with his plans. I want to very much, but I need to hear him say that he is planning to start a NEW party. He will never get anywhere running as an outsider until election season and then hoping the entrenched Democratic Party is going to let him in. I think one whole hell of a lot of us would do the work to get a new party official status. I did it in the 90’s in Maine for the Greens and it is worth doing. If we are going to have a revolution, we have to have a REVOLUTION

The United States already spends enough for health care that we could pay for single payer. The problem is the money is currently directed toward the health care profiteers and away from actual care. CEO salaries?

We know by evaluating the systems in the rest of the developed world that the US could cut health care spending yet cover the entire population and do a better job of it than we do now.

Lrx said “BernieBros!” It’s great to see you stoop to such desperate smears. Desperate tactics by corporate toady Democrats is a good sign for the universal coverage, single payer, improved Medicare for All movement. Keep babbling, bro! Oh btw:

To hell with corporate toady Democrats like the Clintons, Krugman, and Lrx. “Realism” my ass, they are toadies for the looting class.

We need to get the looting class the f#@k OUT of health care. Those vampires have NOTHING to do with health care, they are profit-sucking and literally murderous vampires.

i’m fighting for the REALISTIC goal. Not for another looting-class Trojan horse, no matter how they pretty it up and cover it in propaganda.

Universal coverage, single-payer, Medicare for all. To hell with the toadies who line up to fight in the trenches to protect the looting class.

Lots of voters believe that the Washington establishments have been purchased by Big Money. They believed that so much that they were willing to believe Trump’s claim that he was too rich to be bought.

These voters think the reason the parties aren’t supporting Medicare for All is obvious.

I certainly agree. The problem with Dr. Krugman is that he, like far too many “liberals”, strikingly overestimate their presumed intelligence. They are nothing more than trained mice running through a maze, able to see the two preordained choices ahead of them. Dr. Krugman’s intellectual hubris prevents him from perceiving the maze or his status as a mouse.

Wow, you read studies on the matter. I did too. Aren’t we great? You might be familiar with those assessments, what you don’t do is take them into account when you post and argue with other people about single payer (and you provide cover for corruption of your buddies in the California Democratic Party). The links I posted do take those factors into account, what people pay now versus what they would pay in taxes under single payer. Your arrogance isn’t matched by the strength of your arguments.

“Do you really want to attack this? Is this worth the fight?”

Did you bother to read the studies that I freaking posted? I did respond to this and the studies I cited did the damn math. What the hell are you blathering on about? It isn’t an attack on you anyway, I’m showing that a single payer system would save money, have less waste and would be a net positive for most people. What have you posted that has countered any of that? I also posted information on money creation and the differences between single payer at the federal level versus the state level, which you didn’t address either.

I won’t bother responding further. You are one brilliant person though KC. I know you think that, no one is as intelligent as you are, especially me.

Remember, I said your point was “debatable” not wrong. Look at my comments. I don’t lie, cover up, or do any of the hyper-critical nonsense you accuse me of. You basically jump from zero to 60 every time someone brings up an actual point that doesn’t conform to your thinking. That’s not my problem, it’s your problem.

I mean, the very fact that the CBO has scored single payer differently at different times suggests your assertion is debatable. At that, when I refer to the CBO’s 1993 analysis, I note that they found the average consumer would pay “modestly” more in taxes. This is because the larger the benefits package, the greater the taxes. If Congress trimmed benefits, the average consumer could pay less too. That’s just life. It in no way means single payer is wrong, bad, or anything.

Not everyone is a “sellout” in life. Sometimes there are genuine challenges with policy that are hard to resolve. Financing is the hill single payer dies on historically, so I feel it is important to have something concrete for voters, to take the issue on head on, at least in general. Otherwise, I think it’ll suffer the same fate it always does, but we obviously differ on that point.